


Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to Rome, Italy

by secace



Category: Arthurian Literature - Fandom, Arthurian Mythology, Arthurian Mythology & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, and being a college (one year) graduate, but shoutout to rey for having great taste in characters, its a 1960s pilot au where gawain is a scottish lord, theres really nothing else to it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24186496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secace/pseuds/secace
Summary: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Rome, Italy,  Rome–Fiumicino International Airport. Local time is 9 PM and the temperature is 72 degrees…” he went through the standard reminders to remain seated till directed by stewardesses, checking for personal belongings et cetera, drumming his fingers on his tensed knee. “On behalf of the entire crew, I’d like to thank you for joining us on this trip and we are looking forward to seeing you onboard again in the near future. Have a nice stay in Rome, it’s-- it’s a wonderful city.” He paused only a moment, not in hesitation. “The… View from the Ponte Sant Angelo is especially beautiful at night, if I might make a personal recommendation.”
Relationships: Gawain/Priamus (Arthurian)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	1. Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to Rome, Italy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Reynier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reynier/gifts).



> rey bro u did it!!! its real icon hours
> 
> and yes ass came up with another au and yes i wrote it and yes there is way more lore which will be expounded upon in eventual future chapters but. god i have like 6 multichpater fics going right now so like ho knows when thatll happen lol

Priamus had read a book, as a child, about the expeditions to the Arctic in the 1800s, and had thought it sounded like an ideal career if only the Arctic had a climate in which he could wear tank tops and the food was better. He’d gotten older and found out that that already existed, and it was called pilot, and moreover he was rather good at it.

He was competent enough at the technical stuff, good at thinking on the fly. He was friendly and adaptable and spoke eight languages, though which languages they were changed every time he was asked. And he was handsome, which he thought was an important trait for a pilot. It instilled trust, though why exactly was unclear even to him.

There were other benefits to that, too. After all, the hotel rooms the pilots and crew were booked free of charge were often very nice and the beds were quite large, too large for one, really. Today there was a rather attractive man in first-class who tipped his glass to Priamus when he left the cockpit to stretch his legs, which seemed promising.

“Did I miss anything?” he asked his co-pilot, Gerry, as he returned to the cabin.

Gerry shook his head, and went back to making detailed notes on the written flight plan as Priamus took over monitoring the various gauges and controls.

“So, Rome for three days. Are you excited?” Gerry asked, cordial as ever.

“Ita a wonderful city,” Priamus answered distantly. Half his mind was on the controls, and the other half was on the man in first class, leaving nothing left for Gerry. The man really had been  _ rather _ attractive. Priamus wondered what he was doing, going from Edinburgh to Rome, and hoped he’d get the chance to ask.

Uh oh. Gerry was still talking. 

“Yeah, haha,” Priamus said. His mind was gone, halfway over the Alps and at the same time lost in tousled brown hair and eyes bright with mischief and unspoken challenge, lips slightly parted in a small, private smile. He was very likely reading too much into a glance, but it was fun to think about.

“Oh, so you know who he is?” Gerry asked, jarring his companion from his contemplation of a very nice shirt with the first four buttons undone.

“Hm.” Said Priamus. “Repeat the question? I was looking at the uh-- dials.”

If Gerry was slighted by his obvious inattention, he didn’t say anything. “I said, one of the stewardesses heard from the ticket girl that apparently someone on this flight is an actual Lord. As in, ancestral castle, English Parliament House of Lords, Lord. Isn’t that neat?”

“That is neat. Thank you, Gerry,” said Priamus, who filed that away as mildly interesting and returned to his musings, not even briefly considering connecting the two lines of thought.

The final hours of the flight passed with no incident, spent by Priamus in happy reverie, and Gerry in-- well, who could ever tell with him. Priamus speculated that instead of a normal brain Gerry had a radio permanently dialled into baseball games and all the most boring commercials. Despite this, he was a decent enough co-pilot.

For instance, he made no comment on Priamus’ end flight announcement. They were taxiing to the gate as he unhooked the radio.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Rome, Italy, Rome–Fiumicino International Airport. Local time is 9 PM and the temperature is 72 degrees…” he went through the standard reminders to remain seated till directed by stewardesses, checking for personal belongings et cetera, drumming his fingers on his tensed knee. “On behalf of the entire crew, I’d like to thank you for joining us on this trip and we are looking forward to seeing you onboard again in the near future. Have a nice stay in Rome, it’s-- it’s a wonderful city.” He paused only a moment, not in hesitation. “The… View from the Ponte Sant Angelo is especially beautiful at night, if I might make a personal recommendation.”

He replaced the device in its cradle with a click.

* * *

“Decided to take your own advice?” Came a voice from his left. Priamus did not need to turn around to guess who it was-- his voice was both, somehow, as expected and surprising. The man’s ease, the expensive Italian shoes, the lack of luggage, had all led Priamus to believe this was a return trip. His accent, not strong but nevertheless detectable, suggested the opposite.

“I did, yes,” Priamus turned, and the man was next to him, leaning back against the old pillars of the bridge, shadowed by one of the ten angel statues. “Have you been to Rome before?”

“Oh, yes. I went to school here for a few years, actually.” That slight, taunting smile still played across his face. As if to test him, the next statement was made in perfect Italian. “You seem very familiar with it yourself. Priamus, right?”

For a moment Priamus was thrown, by the change in language and the use of his name, before his suddenly sluggish brain recalled that he had, in fact, introduced himself during the first announcement. Impressive of the man to even remember that. 

“I am, I suppose. I’ve made many flights here. Forgive me but, you have me at a disadvantage.”

“Oh, would that I did,” he commented lightly, and before Priamus could figure out what  _ that _ meant, he continued. “You can call me Gawain.”

“Just Gawain?”

“How’s this Captain? I’ll tell you my full name,” Gawain gave him a long, considering look. “Tommorow morning.”

“Deal,” Priamus said quickly. “The airline books me a hotel room for free, if--”

Gawain laughed. He had a pleasant laugh, like you were in on the joke, not the butt of it. “I promise mine is nicer.”

It was.

The next morning dawned bright and warm, promising a scorched and sticky summer day ahead. Priamus wasn’t flying out till early the next morning, so there wasn’t much rush to rise. Especially when the room was so nice. Whoever Gawain was he was very, very rich.

That thought returned his mind to the almost forgotten question of yesterday evening. Gawain was already dressed, and sprawled languidly and intentionally in the wide windowsill overlooking the Tiber, pretending to read the Bible that was in the bedside table drawer.

“I believe it’s tommorow morning, if I’m not mistaken,” Priamus pointed out, sitting up in the unbelievably comfortable bed. 

“Good morning.” Gawain dropped the book on the floor and stood, walking to the mirror. 

Priamus was not about to allow himself to be deflected. “Yes, and to you. But I think that means you owe me a name.”

Gawain ran a hand through his hair and was evidently satisfied with the results, though it was no less dishevelled. He put a hand in his pocket and pulled up a wallet, tossing it to Priamus in the bed. Priamus caught it as Gawain wandered over to the phone.

“I'm getting room service. Do you want food?”

“Uh, sure, thanks,” Priamus said, distracted, having opened the wallet and stared at the contents for a while. He closed it and then opened it again as if that might change the contents. Looking up at the man who was currently ordering a prodigious amount of food on the room phone, Priamus mentally compared him to the name he belonged to. The wallet closed with the soft slap of very fine leather, and he rose, returning it to its owner.

Clothes were reluctantly gathered off the floor, and food arrived, eaten in bed over an inane discussion of local landmarks which devolved, surprisingly, into an informed discussion of architectural history. The conversation began in English and switched abruptly into Italian. Adroitly, Gawain tried a sentence in Latin, and when Priamus understood, continued that way delightedly till Gawain tried Greek. Which was difficult not because Priamus wasn’t fluent in Modern Greek, which he was, but because Gawain spoke only Ancient pre-Hellenistic Greek. They tried several other languages-- Priamus Cantonese, Egyptian Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic, Gawain French, Welsh and Scots Gaelic. At some point, the subject was abandoned in favour of the method.

“So,” Gawain said, deftly cutting a slice of apple with a pocket knife, “we’re tied, seven and seven.”

“No, no, I have eight,” Priamus argued.

“Sicilian doesn’t count. Its a dialect of Italian,” Gawain countered.

“Oh yeah?” Priamus finished his cup of coffee, went to slam it down dramatically, and reconsidered at the last second. Placing it down gently and anticlimactically, Priamus smirked. 

After a few minutes of saying whatever came to his mind very quickly in Sicilian, Gawain conceded defeat.

“Fine, fine. But if your counting that, I'm counting low scots. We´re still tied.”

Priamus was privately vowing to learn Scots Gaelic the next chance he got, when Gawain rose suddenly. 

“Sorry to cut the competition short, but I really do have business here. Flying out tomorrow?”

“Hm? Oh, yes. Early, I'm afraid.”

Gawain paused at the door and looked back. “Busy tonight?”

“Not remotely.”

“Want to do something illegal?” The smile was back.

“More than anything,” Priamus swore lightly.

Gawain swung the door open, grinning, “Wonderful. Feel free to steal from the hotel room.”

* * *

“Have a nice day yesterday?” Gerry asked, solicitude unhampered by the fact it was five AM.

“Yeah, it was great. I fucked a member of the House of Lords and broke into the Vatican. We made out in a stolen car.” Before Gerry could respond, Priamus unhooked the radio. “This is your captain speaking…”


	2. We Are Now Touching Down In Edinburgh, Scotland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “In. The koi pond.” He said incredulously. Priamus gave him a questioning look and Gawain shrugged as if to indicate he was also confused. “Well don’t lock him in, Gare, buddy, that’s kidnapping. Yes, it is, dont argue with me or I’ll cut you out of my will. Yes, that was a joke, I'm sorry. Look-- can you put him on the phone?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah i updated this thats right. discord really drops plot points (the orkneys find lancelot in their koi pond) and i write them seriously. im unhinged.  
> also YES sparrow is a reference to the girl from l+atre who loses her sparrow hawk and makes gawain look for it. shes an icon

“Hello, yes? Oh. Yeah, Gare, what is it?” Gawain said into the hotel room phone. They were in Merano. Priamus there on the tail end of a twelve-hour flight from Bangkok, and coincidentally so was Gawain for, presumably, Gawain reasons. 

“In. The koi pond.” He said incredulously. Priamus gave him a questioning look and Gawain shrugged as if to indicate he was also confused. “Well don’t lock him in, Gare, buddy, that’s kidnapping. Yes, it is, dont argue with me or I’ll cut you out of my will. Yes, that was a joke, I'm sorry. Look-- can you put him on the phone?” 

Gawain played idly with the phone cord. “Yes, I know he only speaks French, Gare, I speak French. Can you just-- no, I’m not joking, why would that be a joke. Since I was about eleven, yeah. Please just hand him the phone.”

There was an extended pause in which ‘he’ was presumably handed the phone. Gawain covered the receiver. “There’s a man in the koi pond. My younger brothers are attempting to kidnap him to keep as some sort of pet.”

“Gosh,” said Priamus. Whatever else he thought about this was unexpressed, as Gawain uncovered the receiver and launched into a rapid-fire discussion in French. Priamus picked up his book and settled back on the bed, figuring correctly that this would be a lengthy affair. 

Whether it ended satisfactorily or Gawain just grew sick of the matter, it wasn’t clear, but he stopped abruptly in the middle of a sentence and slammed the phone into the receiver. “Never have brothers, Priamus. Never have a pond. Never learn French.”

“Three out of three. Hat trick.” Priamus crossed his legs, wondering what Gawain was going to do now that the phone wasn’t distracting him. He was going to be disappointed.

“He’s very nice, actually, I feel bad about the-- whatever was happening. God, I need food to reward myself. I pay my steward well so that I don’t have to ever think about the estate, and yet.”

“We just came from dinner,” Priamus pointed out, not necessarily in censure.

“Oh, what was that? I couldn’t hear you,” Gawain picked up the phone again and dialled for room service, “I'm on the telephone.”

* * *

They parted at the airport the next morning, Priamus off to Berlin and Gawain boarding a flight to Edinburgh. He took a train upon touching down, eschewing a private car in favour of people watching. 

The car was crowded and, he thought, delightful. He met a pair of older nuns, who told him several interestingly scandalous stories of what the sisters got up to in their younger days. He witnessed a pair of awful newlyweds argue, discussed Percy Shelley with a young collegiate, and learned to count to eight in German from a small child. 

Gawain disembarked somewhere in East Lothian and met his driver, a young woman named Sparrow, who took him the final leg of the journey to the family estate. Their traditional seat was in the Orkney Islands, but it was a grim and isolated place, and besides their mother lived there. They spent very little time in the Orkneys, out of preference and convenience. 

Leaning forward against the back of the driver’s seat, Gawain looked out the windshield onto the long driveway. “Have you met the Frenchman?”

“No, I just drive the car.”

He couldn’t tell whether she was joking or not. “Well, you’re doing a bang-up job.”

She parked the car and pretended to check the dash. “That’ll be two pounds, six shillings, Sir.”

“Sparrow this isn’t a hackney, I pay you a salary,” Gawain explained for the nth time. For the nth time, he paid her anyway, to avoid the argument. She dropped him off at the front door, where he was greeted by his two youngest brothers, minus the one currently at boarding school.

“How was Italy, Gawain?” Gareth asked politely, looking a tad nervous.

“Brief. How was attempted kidnapping?” Gawain asked dryly, striding into the hall leaving his brothers to trail behind him.

Gareth turned to Gaheris. “You called him?!”

“I panicked!”

“Come on, people, get it together. You have to stand as one front, not fall to infighting,” Gawain encouraged them. “Now tell, me, where is he now?”

Gaheris looked at him like this was a stupid question. “The koi pond. I told you that. We let him out back where we found him.”

For a few seconds, he didn’t say anything, an expression of disbelief on his face. “You just left him there?”

“He likes it out there!” Gareth jumped in. His accomplice nodded.

Never thrown for long, Gawain clapped his hands. “Very well. Onwards to the gardens, everyone.” 

He set off once again, and they followed. “Our merry cavalcade is missing someone. Where’s Aggs?”

Gaheris shrugged. “Still sulking in his room, probably.”

The youngest, Mordred, had been punitively shipped off to a boarding school for problem cases two weeks ago, at the interference of their mother. Gawain already planned to surreptitiously call him back for the winter holidays and never return him, but until then they were bereft. Agravaine had decided that, like most things in his life, this was his eldest brothers fault. 

“Well, I’d hate to interrupt that,” Gawain said, flinging the French doors open and emerging into the gardens. 

Gareth followed sheepishly. “I thought this might cheer him up.” 

Gawain stopped abruptly, and Gaheris, close on his heels, took an unsteady step backwards to avoid running into him, skidding in the fine gravel walk and falling into a line of rhododendrons. “You kidnapped a wanderer to replace Mordred and cheer up Aggs? That was the thought process?”

“Er. Yes.”

Gawain squared his shoulders and continued on. “Fair enough. Gaheris, please stop rolling around in the gardenias, the gardener works very hard and you’re making a mess of things.”

“They’re hydrangeas,” Gaheris mumbled, dusting himself off.

The koi pond was large, constructed on two levels as to create a miniature waterfall, the larger low area bisected by a wooden bridge. There was a man on the bridge, leaning idly over the rail to stare down at the water, watching the brightly coloured fish. He straightened when he noticed them approach, posture awkwardly apologetic.

“My lord! I’m sorry,” he said. His command of English was loose at best, but these two phrases could get one fairly far in life.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Gawain said, slipping into French with a side-eye at Gaheris. “I spoke to you on the telephone yesterday, if you remember, my name is Gawain.”

“Oh! Ah-- Lancelot.”

“So you said.”

“Sorry.”

Gawain was at the end of the bridge now, stopping a polite few paces off. “Again, don’t apologize. Your only crimes thus far are going to sleep in a random garden and being eminently kidnappable, neither of which I find damning. Do you want to come inside? I believe high tea is being laid out.”

Ah, his brothers would have thought if they spoke French, thus the urgency. Alas, they did not.

“I-- dont want to impose. Really I just-- chose a very inconvenient place for a nap. There were signs, which in retrospect probably said ‘private property’ or something like that, but I didn’t understand them.” Lancelot admitted, still staring down at the fish like they held answers.

Gawain smiled, a powerful weapon on the right target. “Not an imposition, my brothers tried to kidnap you and lock you in our basement, I think I owe you one. And I like meeting people, you seem interesting.”

It was the right target.

* * *

Soon they were gathered, cheery, or at least extant, around a table set up outside with tea, little cakes and fresh fruit. 

“This is a pastry. P-a-s-t-r-y. You don’t have these in France, I bet,” Gaheris said, waving around a petit four, enunciating very slowly as if this would elucidate his statement. 

“Petit four  _ is _ French, Gaheris,” Gareth pointed out.

Uh… C’est bien. Cool?“ Lancelot said politely. 

Gawain rolled his eyes. “Could you two put a few of these on a plate and bring a cup of tea to your brother in self-banishment?”

“I don’t think its needs both of us,” Gareth frowned.

“Gaheris to carry them and you to stop him from falling down the stairs and dying.”

They were sent away, bidding overdramatic farewells to Lancelot, who gave a confused little wave to their retreating backs. Gawain took a couple more petit fours, then turned to their intruder turned kidnapping victim turned guest. He was startled and flustered to suddenly be the full focus of attention and poked at a napkin uncomfortably.

“I am wondering how you came to be in my garden,” Gawain asked in French. “Idle curiosity only, you’ve no obligation to answer.”

Lancelot looked as if he was surprised someone would be interested in his precedence outside of ceasing it. “Oh-- I got lost. I live with my mother in France, where I draw pictures for advertisements. As a job, not for fun.”

“You got lost. From France. Across the English channel. And ended up in Scotland.” Gawain said incredulously.

Lancelot nodded. “Yeah. I'm a really strong swimmer. And then I didn’t understand any signs and I panicked and got on a train, which kicked me off after a while because they didn’t accept Francs.”

Gawain wasn’t a man easily made speechless, but this approached it. “Uh. Huh. Well, you were going the wrong way if you got off at the train station. France is that way.” He pointed South.

Lancelot turned in his seat towards the direction indicated, and looked at the wall in dismay. “That’s gonna be. A long walk.”

“God, I’m not going to make you walk!” Gawain said quickly. “I can have my driver take you to the train station and give you fare to get as far as across the channel. Or-- I’m going into London next week. I’ll put you up till then, and you can take an aeroplane.”

A generous offer, but he was a generous man. And a bored man, and a man who wanted to extend any event that amused and pleased his brothers. The arrival of a stranger had them in a better mood than they’d been in for two weeks. Maybe Agravaine would be curious enough to stop confining himself above stairs. 

“I’ve never been on one of those,” Lancelot admitted, intrigued. “But-- that’s far kinder than I deserve. I don’t even know you, I can’t expect you to--”

“Mr Du Loc, and I say this in all modesty because I’m really quite ashamed of it, but I have a house the size of a small country and more money than God. You couldn’t impose on me if you and your entire family moved into my dining room permanently and started selling off my belongings,” Gawain said, not unkindly. “Really, you seem like a nice man and I like helping nice people.”

Lancelot looked at his surroundings and seemed to see the accuracy of that statement. “You really wouldn’t mind, then?” 

“Not remotely,” Gawain sat back. “When you’re done with tea, I’ll show you to the West wing, that’s where the nicest guest rooms are, you can have your pick.”

He seemed almost upset. “Oh.”

“Are you alright? Did I say something wrong?” Gawain asked, concerned.

He shook his head, numbly. “I don’t understand why you’re being so nice to me. You don’t even  _ know  _ me.”

“I told you,” Gawain said casually, “You seem like a nice man, and I can help you to very little personal cost or effort. Why shouldn’t I?”

“I-- Well. Thank you…” Before he could imagine something more substantial to say, they were interrupted by voices on the terrace.

“He wanted to investigate,” Gareth said, as if in apology or explanation.

“Who the fuck is this and why is he in our home?” Agravaine demanded.

“We’re replacing you,” Gaheris told him, smirking. Agravaine pretended he hadn’t spoken.

“His name is Lancelot, he’s French. He got lost. He is our guest for a few days till I go to London on Friday,” Gawain explained.

Agravaine crossed his arms. “Well, I fucking hate him. I hope he drowns in the koi pond.”

“What is he saying?” Lancelot asked in French.

“That’s my brother Agravaine. He’s saying it’s nice to meet you.”

  
  
  



	3. Check Around your Seat for Any Personal Belongings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He’s nice,” Gareth asserted. “He’ll draw you a picture if you ask.” Somehow, the knowledge of the career of their guest had made its way to Gareth, who had him busy producing images of cowboys and baseball players. They were, even Agravaine had to admit, of a surprisingly high quality.  
> “He's awful. You should throw things at him,” Agravaine said, stabbing idly at a napkin with a knife. Gingalain considered these two contrasting points, then looked at Gawain for a final judgement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so i know this is the pilot au and the titular, eponymous pilot was not. strictly speaking. in this chapter. look. its all about telegrams now. and dont worry he will be in the next chapter.

“I am going to hire someone to stand outside my door and hurt anyone who tries to knock on it,” Gawain announced. Then, louder, he said, “What is it?”

“A raven. Your dead lover will never come back to life.”

Gawain sat up. “Universities should require personality tests before allowing enrollment in English classes. What do you want, Agravaine?”

“I didn’t want to take an English class. You said I needed to broaden my knowledge.”

“No, I didn’t.” Gawain pulled back the curtain to look out the window. It was dark.

“You did. Liar.”

“I am not!” He just barely stopped himself from saying, upon recalling that he was a responsible, mature adult. “Did you come here for a reason, or just to punish me for talking you into taking an English class?”

“Aha!” The doorknob turned experimentally. “So you admit to that.”

“Do not come in, just tell me what you want, for God’s sake--”

“Or what?” He asked smugly. The doorknob turned another centimetre. “You’ll ship me off to boarding school, too?”

“If I could find one that took nineteen-year-old university drop outs, yes,” Gawain said, which was harsh, but he was always at his absolute worst before the sun was up. “For the love of God, what do you want?”

The doorknob completed its axis and the door slid open a crack.

“For the second time, just tell me through the door. You have not been granted entrance.”

“Why not.”

“Because I can boss you around, legally. Primogeniture.”

The door began to open.

“Fuck! You win! I’m not dressed, alright? You asshole!”

There was laughter from behind the door.

“I’m going to cut you out of my will.”

“No, you aren’t. Also, your wife is arriving in twenty minutes!” The door slammed shut, smug footsteps echoing away behind it.

In what was a surprise to most of his acquaintances and often himself, Gawain had a wife. Her name was Ragnelle, her family was American new money which, like red wine to chocolate, paired well with fancy titles and not-as-much-money-as-they-used-to-have old European nobility. They had met once before the ceremony. They took separate cars leaving it. They were both very satisfied with this arrangement.

Over the previous fourteen months since, they had developed a cautious friendship, mostly epistolary. She was unpredictable, ill-mannered, brash and cuttingly intelligent, and Gawain was, in an admiring way, afraid of her. What she thought of him, he was afraid to ask, but she must have trusted his judgement at least decently, or she wouldn’t:

“Good morning, dearest husband,” Ragnelle said, walking through the front door and not setting her bag down. “Guess what bastard finally keeled over?”

“Good morning Ragnelle,” said Gawain, who would be about a sentence behind until a more reasonable hour. 

“You have to guess.”

“You’ve had better riddles.” He thought about it. “I don’t know, the Prince of Wales?”

She looked disappointed. “My brother.”

“Oh,” he suppressed a yawn. “Congrats.”

“Thank you. I have to fly to the states on a redeye, which leaves--”

“So that’s why you’re here. Yeah, sure. Where is he?”

She raised her bag on her shoulder, preparing to leave, business complete. “Sleeping in the car. I’ll fetch him and be off.”

Gingalain was led in. Gingalain was Ragnelle’s son, or as her family called him, her “younger brother”. He was six. Gawain thought he was delightful.

Ragnelle said her goodbyes to the semi-conscious Gingalain and departed, leaving a bag of his things. He stared at the bag, then at the floor.

“Hi. I’m tired,” he said, straight to the point.

“That’s a nice name.”

Gingalian narrowed his eyes and considered this comment. “I didn’t like that joke.”

“Neither did I. How about you go back to bed?” Gawain offered, picking up the little suitcase. Gingalain found that agreeable, and allowed himself to be shown to the single guest room on the first floor, which Gawain thought was the safest place for a room, with no evidence or reasoning behind that belief. Promptly, Gingalain returned to sleep. 

A man for whom this was impossible, Gawain sighed and went to the study to pretend to answer important letters. Once he was awake, he was awake for the day, as going back to sleep would legally qualify as a nap, something which, as a rule, Gawain did not do. He had tried once when he was eleven, and found the experience miserable and disconcerting, and was as such vocally derisive of anyone who did take part in such a slothful exercise. This meant he was secretly very jealous.

Speaking of slothfulness, their original guest did not rise till noon. Gawain told himself that this was not damning, and swimming across the English channel and walking the breadth of Britain justified some small degree of inertia. He generally tried to be generous. 

They were having lunch in the smaller, more casual dining room when Lancelot emerged, directed by the housekeeper. Gawain had loaned him a set of clothes that hadn’t travelled eight hundred miles in a few days. They didn’t fit very well, there being a good six inches in height difference between them, but needs must. 

Gawain was planning to go into town the next day, for several reasons, but one of them was a plan to send Lancelot back to Strasbourg with a fine new suit. Partially because he was mostly a kind and generous person, but also due to an innate desire to see matters comprehensively resolved. His job on this earth as he saw it was to fix things for his family and acquaintances, whether they wished him to or not.

And besides, he believed fundamentally that handsome men should have nice suits.

Lancelot stood about a metre off, looking at the table in panic, like he wasn’t sure whether he had miscounted the number of brothers and was worried it would be rude to ask.

After a moment, Gawain took pity on him, gesturing for him to sit in a vacant chair. “Lancelot, Gingalain, Gingalain Lancelot.” 

“We found him in the koi pond. He’s  _ French,”  _ Gaheris explained to Gingalain meaningfully. No one yet had the courage to ask Gaheris what his understanding of “France” actually was, but it definitely wasn’t correct.

“He’s nice,” Gareth asserted. “He’ll draw you a picture if you ask.” Somehow, the knowledge of the career of their guest had made its way to Gareth, who had him busy producing images of cowboys and baseball players. They were, even Agravaine had to admit, of a surprisingly high quality.

“He's awful. You should throw things at him,” Agravaine said, stabbing idly at a napkin with a knife. Gingalain considered these two contrasting points, then looked at Gawain for a final judgement. 

“It's up to you, bud. But remember friends are more useful than enemies.” Gawain said in English. Then, to Lancelot, “I’m afraid my brother is behaving like a tyrant. He means to paper over his bedroom with your drawings, I think.”

“I don’t mind. It’s very complimentary.”

“Do you have dinner in France?” Gaheris asked, loudly and very slowly.

“No, Gaheris,” said Agravaine sarcastically, “They just wander around, eating dirt and leaves when they get hungry, tearing into wild animals with their teeth.”

Gingalain frowned. “That isn’t true. My tutor says that France is very civ-i-lized,” the last word he sounded out carefully.

“He’s probably in league with them,” Agravaine suggested lightly. 

“We’re all in league with France, Gentlemen.” Gawain said, with a fond half-smile. “It’s called the Auld Alliance and you’ll simply have to come to terms with it.”

“Like NATO?”

“Not remotely, no.”

“What’s NATO?”

The argument continued in happy vacuity for the remainder of the midday meal, after which they all departed to various enterprises. Gawain retired to the study to continue pretending to answer letters, and Gingalain followed him, for the thrill of sitting in a large chair and punching holes in important papers.

Agravaine retreated to his rooms, where he was engaged in taking apart and then putting back together a handheld radio that he had already deconstructed and rebuilt so many times that it should not by any account have functioned. Gaheris fled to do who knew what, and Gareth returned to pestering the eminently patient Lancelot. At some point, Gareth had located a French dictionary buried deep in the library, and was using it to request increasingly elaborate illustrations.

The afternoon passed tolerably that way, fading into early evening, though it remained rather unseasonably warm. High tea was taken in various private rooms, unsociably. 

Around five, Gawain gave up on financial accounts and accepted the ignominy of getting help from Kay when he went to London, like he did every month. Trying to do maths gave him a headache, and the whole thing seemed very distasteful. Gingalain informed them all, going room by room, that he was going to sleep, because it was important for his development, which they all agreed sounded very practical of him.

The Lord of Orkney went on a walk, the last resort of the horrifically bored. He believed that soujours should be taken into the wilderness, and return should be days later, exhausted and covered in blood. Meandering about the manicured grounds made him feel like an over civilized prodigal ass, which he was, but didn’t care to be reminded of this. 

There came a soon-to-be familiar splash from the koi pond as he rounded the path towards it.

“I have a cook, you don’t need to fish for your supper yourself,” Gawain joked, propped against one of the magnolia trees which overlooked the pond.

“Oh, I wasn’t-- I just wanted to see if I could catch one of the fish.”

The koi pond wasn’t really intended for swimming, but Lancelot certainly wasn't doing any harm to it, and clothes could be laundered. The fish skirted around him in cautious befuddlement, but without alarm.

“Well, can you?” Gawain asked curiously.

Lancelot proudly hoisted an orange and black form out of the water. “I can!”

It thrashed about a moment, and Lancelot gently released it back under the surface. “You don’t want to join me?”

“Hm. What? Oh, I’m fine watching.” Gawain tapped his fingers on the railing very casually. “I don’t like swimming. Not nearly as much as you do, at any rate.”

Lancelot shrugged modestly, sinking lower into the water. “I grew up on a lake. My mother says I could swim before I could walk.”

“That explains some things,” Gawain settled cross legged on the even grey stone lining the water. “Do you want to send her a telegram, to tell her you’re alright?”

“I’ve never sent a telegram before,” Lancelot said, statements akin to which Gawain was beginning to correctly suspect meant ‘yes, but I feel guilty asking’.

“Well, write your message down and I’ll have my driver off to Edinburgh, your mother will receive it by tomorrow evening at the latest.” 

Lancelot drifted over near the edge, folding his arms on the slicked-black liner stones, looking like the nixie of the mill-pond. “Thank you. I-- it will be a long time to repay you.”

“My new friend,” Gawain addressed him formally, “If you attempt to offer me money again, I’ll take it as an insult.”

“Oh.” Lancelot smiled, hesitantly. “Alright. If you’re sure.”

“I’m always sure. That’s why they made me a Lord.”

He smiled in earnest now. “Is that so?” 

“Oh, no, the noble peers of the realm wouldn’t care if I were twenty angry feral cats in a suit, if those cats were the firstborn in wedlock male son’s of my father.”

“That is quite an image.” Lancelot quirked his head, sending wet hair over his face. “Maybe you are twenty angry feral cats in a suit, and that’s why you won’t get in the water.”

“I can't believe I have to say this-- I am not twenty angry feral cats in a suit,” Gawain protested, struggling not to laugh.

“I believe you!” Lancelot said earnestly. And waited.

“Fine,” Gawain said after a moment, “I’ll just stick my hand into the water. For posterity.”

He did. It felt very silly. They laughed, sort of awkwardly at first, then sincerely. They stayed there, conversing of nothing, till the sun slipped below the treeline and it began to grow chill. Lancelot, sopping wet and not at all unhappy about it, was made to rejoin society, and trudge back to the main house to change into another set of ill fitting borrowed clothes. They had supper together, in the main hall, and mostly nothing went wrong.


End file.
